Asian Portrayals in Popular Culture

• In Event: Fighting Anti-Asian Racism: Utilizing Different Critical Approaches to Counternarratives

Abstract

Purposes
Popular culture is an effective medium to reach a wide audience and can serve as a poignant agent of cultural change. Media serves as a vessel of power, such that “critical media studies is concerned with how society and politics are structured and work to one’s advantage or disadvantage” (Alvermann & Hagood, 2000, p.194). This session analyzes depictions of Asians and Asian Americans in US popular culture, from sitcoms like Fresh of the Boat and films like Harold and Kumar and Crazy Rich Asians, to graphic novels like American Born Chinese, where the portrayal of Asians and Asian Americans propagates some stereotypes while also challenges others. The changing attitudes of the US audience is analyzed as to why these more recent depictions are apt to present nuances in Asian culture and trouble categorical classifications of Asians against a backdrop of political and cultural antagonism towards Asians. These more recent media productions are also often created by Asian Americans for the general majority US culture, which may instigate bidirectional change of attitudes for both the majority culture and Asian Americans themselves as evidenced by US popular culture.

Theoretical framework
Theory of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) is subscribed in this study to deconstruct the interlocking systems of oppression, such as with to respects to race, gender, and class. Furthermore, intersectionality analysis is employed to tease out the effects of contingents of identity within popular culture portrayals (Edwards & Esposito, 2019). As such, the overlapping effects of layers of identity are studied, such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and class, and the effects of these veins’ gradations on their media portrayals, and their potential effect on audiences will be hypothesized.

Methods and data sources
The data source for this study is texts from different media, whether movies, television shows, or literature. The research explores the premise and specific scenes from these multiple media types for the veracity of their depictions of Asian culture. The data include specific speech and dialogue, the form as well as the content, for its conveyed message, intentional and not. And special attention will be paid to take a critical look at the effects of these portrayals on the general viewership.

Results
The study will show how US media has shifted from skewed depictions of Asians in the past to more nuanced authentic depictions in recent years. The main cause of such a shift is the creators of the message have become Asians themselves, instead of non-Asians. Consequently, more recent portrayals are more nuanced and authentic, presenting Asians genuinely, instead of as perpetual foreigners or model minorities or enemy outsiders.

Scholarly significance of the study
This work bolsters critical race and popular culture studies with a special attention on Asian American population – an ethnic group has long been neglected in the education research field.

Author

• Xiaodi Zhou, The University of Texas - Brownsville